I miss the summers of my youth. You remember them right? Before you had to go work that summer job. When your only job was to cut the grass when you got tired of hearing your Dad yell at you to do it.

Budgeting the weekly allowance you got on movies, the arcade, candy, snacks, and other fairly useless stuff.

Comparing who could see *insert summer movie* the most number of times.

Wiffle ball and the 100 variations of the game you’d invent based on number of players that day.

Kool-Aid. Frozen and un-frozen.

Your mode of transportation was your bike. Your circle consisted of whatever kids lived in your neighborhood who also had nothing else to do but heave water balloons at each other.

The heat outside drained every ounce of energy you had, but it didn’t matter because you could sleep as late as you want.

Seeing who could drink the most Slurpee before becoming victim to the brain freeze.

The days when you were in your own pool, or a friend who had a pool. All day long, trying to invent silly new jumps or methods to splash someone just laying out to tan.

Even when I worked summer jobs, all this was pretty much the norm on my days off. Except now I went to the beach because I could drive there. Well, after I turned 16. I started working at 14. So I already have 20 years of social security paid in that will probably never get paid out.

If you could have an entire summer month off from your daily job, be it raising kids or stuck in a windowless office like mine, what would you do?

**Side Note**

The best part of summer for me, while I have a hockey team to play for, are my game times. All my games during the summer start at 8:30 or a couple at 8:45. I have been asked when I play so people could come see so if you are in Orlando this summer, except next week, and want to come see me play a much slower than the NHL version of the game, now is your chance. During the winter months, my games usually start at 9:30 and have started as late as 11:00 at night. So let me know if you want to come watch and I’ll make sure you get VIP seating. By VIP seating I mean directions to the rink and what time to show up. You can sit anywhere you want after that.

Living where we do offers some wonderful opportunities for local getaways. We only have an hour in the car and no airports except when driving by.

We got to stay in 2 very uniquely different places. The first one I sadly have no pictures for because we were always in the water. Except during the USA soccer match that totally sucked to watch. No point in taking pictures of that heartbreak. We stayed at a new resort to the area that has a water park built into it. A hotel resort WITH a water park. I’m talking slides you must climb to ride with nice vistas of the city. There is also a quiet pool that is only for resort guests, but that is not the point of the place. The point of the place is to play in the water park all day, go sleep, wake up, and do it all over again. That’s just what we did.

My children are fish. Great swimmers too, which is good considering how much they love being in the water.

The second hotel provided some more photo opportunities. This first one was taken during our transition between establishments. Yes, it gets really hot here which is why we have so many pools.

Our second destination is a more recognized themed resort. It is a place to bring your children. It is not a place for a quiet adult getaway. It is the Nickelodeon resort. It is a fantastic place to bring your kids.

These guys are everywhere. They were even in our room, but this was on stage for a show.

The term character breakfast took on a whole new meaning.

The movie version looks way cooler I think. Also, I don’t see the goofy goober dance being in the movie either. Doesn’t mean I couldn’t dork it up myself.

The highlight for me though came later in the pool. Imagine that, we were in the pool. Anyway, twice a day they offer a mass sliming at the pool. If you have seen Nickelodeon at any time in your life, you know how important slime is to the brand. As someone who grew up watching the channel and all the slime on “You can’t do that on television” I was excited to be a part of it. It may have taken 20+ years to finally be covered in the green liquid, but it was worth it. Gladly, I was able to jump in the pool right after. Refreshing to say the least. The kids cannot wait to go back and I will look forward to taking them.

For now though, I think we need our own vacation!

This weekend we will celebrate my birthday which was Thursday of this week. Which, by the way, thanks for all the great comments on my blog, my wife’s blog, Twitter, and Facebook.

My birthday was pretty good. I had to work today but we had our end of month lunch and meeting so the had some Carvel ice cream cake and catered in Chick-Fil-A complete with the new spicy chicken sandwich. My favorite cake purely by chance and the whole office sang to me.

After work I had some good time with my girls, we read books, they gave me balloons, and sang the birthday song to me over some home made strawberry pies. Best. Song. Ever. The pies were good too.

After a few hours, I had to go play hockey. It started out poorly where the other team scored 2 goals, although good goals on well placed shots, it was in the first 5 minutes. After that though, I shut them down. We won 6-2 and I fought off two 5-on-3 penalties which was not easy. But it was a fun game and it’s always best to come out on the winning side.

We are going to play in some local hotels this weekend which should be great fun. Saturday though, we’re going to an “English” pub to watch the USA match against Ghana in the World Cup round of 16. GO USA!!!! If we play our best game, I like our chances to advance past either team we’d face in the quarter-finals as well. One game at a time though, and Ghana will be a tough foe.

Have a nice weekend!